Session 2, VP2

Rising with the morning sun, Sylvie left the inn to visit various merchants at the farmer's market. While she did so, Lauren & Reinhold awoke and helped themselves to the breakfast spread at the inn.

Sylvie's final stop on her rounds was a kindly old woman who traded her some herbs and flowers. Looking for something to do in town while waiting for the Tournament, Sylvie inquired if there were any odd jobs that needed doing. The old woman thought for a second, and told Sylvie that one of the vegetable farmers, Jeff, was having some issues with his land. Sylvie thanked her for the info, and was given a few bags of cookies from the woman with a wink.

When Sylvie arrived back at the inn, she sat down to join Reinhold & Lauren at breakfast. The trainers discussed sticking together for at least a while longer, and eagerly agreed to accompany Sylvie to visit Jeff's farm.

First though, they wanted to settle their wager with Perthro. The party found him exactly where he was the day prior, where he seemed to be staring off into space. The group debated if they should poke him, but settled on waving a hand in front of his face. Perthro suddenly woke in response, and began trying to pitch his wares.

After Lauren brought up the wager from the day prior, which Perthro insisted the party offered to him, not the other way around, the party showed Perthro that they had each obtained at least 1 new Pokemon. Satisfied, Perthro stood and bowed with a flourish, placing 4 Pokedexes onto the ground.

The party eagerly took up their new tech, trying to figure out how to use them. Perthro seemed to go back to sleep, so the group head off to Jeff's farm. As they passed the Pokemon Center, they once more ran into Gyda, and explained that they were staying in town to take part in the Tournament.

Gyda expressed her starstruck wish to win the tournament, using that to become a celebrity. When Reinhold asked what Pokemon she would be using, Gyda said that would be "asking a lady to tell", and went back to her farm.

A few hours later, they arrived at a middling-sized farm. The crops in front of the farmhouse were all various forms of vegetables and fruits, and some flower fields could be seen behind it. The trainers could hear that Jeff was currently working in the cornfields, so they walked down the dirt path to his farmhouse, and decided to wait on his porch.

After a short bit of time, Jeff came walking up from the fields, wiping his brow. When he saw the party, he hailed them, and asked what he could for them. Sylvie explained that they had heard he was having some kind of problem on the farm, and were hoping to help resolve it.

Jeff excused himself indoors to clean himself up some, and returned with glasses of iced tea for everyone, as well as some old, assorted poffins for the Pokemon. He explained that he wasn't particularly comfortable with Pokemon, and didn’t work with any himself.

While everyone relaxed on the porch, Jeff explained that he'd been having issues with his sunflower field this season. He had planted the seeds a week or so ago, but noticed that something had dug them up. Every time he would re-plant seeds, whatever creatures were lurking nearby would come dig them up when he wasn't around, usually in the afternoon.

Being the only person working the fields, he was unable to take a day to sit and watch the sunflower patch to catch the perpetrators. The party offered that they could stake the area out for him. Jeff readily accepted, and led them to the relevant patch of land. Sure enough, the entire crop had been dug up, and there were some sort of bird-like tracks all around. Jeff excused himself back to work, leaving the party to figure things out.

Using their new Pokedexes, the party managed to confirm that, whatever the Pokemon was, its footprints didn't match those of the birds registered in their database. They were more similar to Spearow's tracks than Natu's, but beyond that, not much else could be discerned.

Realizing that it was nearly noon, and Jeff said that the seeds seemed to be dug up in the afternoon, the party decided to lay a trap. They found Jeff in his vegetable fields, and asked to have some of his sunflower seeds. Hesitant, with his supply dwindling, Jeff consented to giving them a small satchel full of seeds.

After laying the seeds pell-mell around the sunflower patch, group laid down in some tall grass nearby to wait.

After an hour or so, Sylvie picked up the sounds of small footsteps coming up from behind them. She reached over and shushed Lauren & Reinhold, letting them know what was going on. Slowly, the footsteps came closer to the patch. Five Torchic eventually stepped out of the grass, and ran over to the seeds.

In-between eating some of the seeds themselves, the Torchic also began to make a few large piles of seed. Two of the Torchic ran into the nearby rosebushes, before reappearing with some large leaves. Working together, the five Torchic moved the piles of seed onto the leaves. They then managed to roughly knot the leaves into small bindles.

With two of the Torchic acting as lookouts, the other three began hauling the bags of seed back the way they had come from. The party made sure to wait until the Torchic had made it a ways away before beginning to follow stealthily, using Thistle's tracking skills.

Following the trail, they quickly reached the end of the farmland, where the land made way into verdant hills. Hiding amongst the last of the crops, the party watched as the Torchic pulled aside a small bush, revealing an earthen tunnel inside one of the nearby hills.

Reinhold asked Kuze to turn invisible and scope the tunnel out. Minutes passed with no sight of Kuze. Just as Reinhold started to worry that Kuze had been gone too long, he popped up from the ground at the party's feet.

Once Kuze stopped chuckling from his prank, the group asked him a series of yes or no questions. They discovered that the space became big enough that they would be able to stand inside of it, and that there were more Pokemon inside that just the Torchics they had seen.

In single-file, the trainers and their starters began to crawl through the hidden tunnel. Thistle, full of excitement, ran ahead down the tunnel a ways. A few minutes later, the group came across where Thistle had stopped. He was quietly peeking around a corner into a larger hollow.

Lauren followed Thistle's lead, and leaned around the corner. In the larger hollow, Lauren could see the five Torchic from before, as well as ten Sunkern. The Sunkern were currently eating the retrieved seeds, while the Torchic were taking turns pecking away at the ceiling.

Unsure what was going on, the party extricated themselves from the tunnel, accidentally startling the Pokemon. Lauren attempted to hold up their hands to indicate that they weren't a threat, but seeing the already tall Lauren suddenly open their "wingspan", the Torchic put themselves between the Sunkern and the party.

Battle was soon joined, as the Torchic seemed to be defending the Sunkern. Lauren and Olli managed to calm one of the Torchics down, but the others were too anxious to back off. As blows were traded, the Sunkern all began to let out a low keening. Clearly, they were distressed by what was happening. Oddly, they didn't move from their positions at all as their cries increased in volume.

The one calmed Torchic ran over in an attempt to calm the Sunkern, but had little success. As the uproar grew stronger, the entire hollow began to shake, and the party feared a collapse. Reinhold had Kuze use Protect to shield them from some of the dirt and stones slowly falling from above while the party managed to KO or catch the remaining Torchic in the fight.

With the battle ended, Sylvie had Thistle run over to the Sunkern to aid in calming them down. Thistle dodged and weaved in a frantic weasel war dance, distracting several of the Sunkern. Following his lead, the calmed Torchic began to dance as well. Between the two Pokemon, the Sunkerns were eventually calmed and quieted before the hollow could collapse.

The trainers released one of the Torchic they had just caught, hoping they could use it to translate that they wanted to figure out what was happening. Although disgruntled by its recent capture, Reinhold's Torchic led them to a spot in the middle of the Sunkern.

It seemed that these Sunkern had bloomed from the same pod, and their roots were still interconnected. Usually, this isn't an issue, as the Sunkern can travel as a group. Unfortunately, a small boulder had dislodged itself from the hollow, landing on top of the Sunkern's roots.

Lauren looked the Sunkern up in their Pokedex, discovering that, although their primary source of sustenance was photosynthesis, they could subsist on seeds if they were unable to get sunlight.

With this last bit of knowledge, everything became clear. The Torchic had discovered the trapped Sunkern, and had been trying to peck through the ceiling to let in sunlight. Unsuccessful at this, they had been stealing the sunflower seeds to keep the Sunkern from starving in the meantime.

Now that they understood the situation, the trainers tried shifting the boulder. It proved much too heavy to move in one piece. Hilda, Laurens Bidoof, identified a weak spot on the rock. Sylvie then had Thistle use Razor Leaf to slice the boulder in half.

Working together, the trainers were able to move the broken halves of the boulder, freeing the Sunkern's roots. Letting out cries of happiness, the Sunkern began hopping their way out of the tunnel. The Torchic followed, and gestured for the party to as well. After a bit of travel, they found themselves back at the barren sunflower patch.

The Sunkern settled themselves down, and their roots took hold in the soil. Rejuvenated by the sunlight, they closed their eyes and began to slightly glow.

The party watched in surprise as some of the seeds left behind from their lure began to take root and sprout, growing in seconds what would normally have taken months. Somehow, the Sunkern were able to speed the growth of the plantlife!

The group was enheartened by this discovery, but needed to explain what they had found to Jeff. They tracked him down, and relayed everything that had happened so far. Jeff was leery at the idea of welcoming the Pokemon as part of his farm, but agreed to come visit the sunflower patch with the party.

Upon seeing the benefits of the Sunkern's presence first-hand, Jeff timidly reached out towards the Torchic and Sunkern. The Pokemon happily moved closer, and the trainers could see Jeff smile as he pet his new tenants.

Eventually, Jeff stood up, and turned to the party. Thanking them for their efforts, he gave them each $1000 as thanks. Glad that they had managed to help, the trainers headed back to the Pokemon Center to recover.

As they were leaving, Gyda entered, clearly having just finished some training with her Pokemon. She seemed surprised to see the party still in town, and mentioned that when they left earlier, she had assumed they were leaving town for good. The group reiterated their desire to take part in the tournament, and Gyda quickly bid them farewell.

Before retiring for the evening, the party took one last trip into Idunn's Heart. They quickly found themselves trapped in a bug's weaving of sticky string. Working together, the party managed to get themselves freed, and successfully defeated or captured the ambushing party.

Exhausted, they once again returned to the inn to rest. The tournament would be held at noon the next day, so the party hoped to get a good night's rest and an early start.

At some point during the night, each of the trainers found themselves experiencing an odd, hazy dream. They found themselves standing in a hazy white fog, unable to make out anything of their surroundings. After what felt like hours wandering the mists, a silhouette begin to form in the distance.

The shadow took the shape of a tall, thin man in a wide-brimmed hat, holding a cane nearly as tall as he was. One of his arms stretched out, pointing at the dominant hands of the trainers.

With a shock of pain, each awoke in the night to see an odd circle of ancient runes seemingly scarred into the back of their hands. Was it just the veil of twilight......or did the scars seem to glow?